Rita Blanco

Acting

Rita Blanco

Born

1963-01-11 (63)

Place of birth

Algés, Oeiras, Portugal

Known for

Acting

Credits

89 titles

Estreia-se como actriz na peça Mariana Espera Casamento, de Jean-Paul Wenzel, sob a direcção de Luís Miguel Cintra, em 1983. Conclui o Curso de Formação de Actores do Conservatório Nacional, em 1985. Ainda no Teatro da Cornucópia representou Perversões de David Mamet, dirigida por Miguel Guilherme e José Pedro Gomes; Antes que a Noite Venha de Eduarda Dionísio, com Adriano Luz; Sangue no Pescoço do Gato de Fassbinder, com Luís Miguel Cintra. Em 1989 participou em Como é Diferente o Amor em Portugal, adaptação da obra de Júlio Dantas, dirigida por Fernando Gomes. Nunca Nada de Ninguém de Luísa Costa Gomes, encenado por Ana Tamen valeu-lhe a nomeação para o Prémio Garrett para a Melhor Interpr…

Known for

Film credits

2020s · 11 titles

Amelia’s Children poster
6.0

When Edward’s search for his biological family leads him and his girlfriend Ryley to a magnificent villa high in the mountains of Northern Portugal, he is full of excitement at meeting his long-lost mother and twin brother. Finally, he will discover who he is and where he comes from. But nothing is as it seems, and Edward will soon learn that he is linked to them by a monstrous secret.

Amelia’s Children

2024

Santo António - Lisbon Love poster
7.0

Lisbon's traditional Saint Anthony's Weddings have hit rock bottom. At least, that's what Stardust, a major French multinational poised to take over the event, believes. Carmo and Valentim, two Lisbon City Hall employees who have spent more than 25 years organizing the celebrations, are given a harsh ultimatum: reinvent the event and turn it into a modern success, or lose their jobs. Directed by the filmmaker behind The Gilded Cage, Saint Anthony is a vibrant comedy and a heartfelt love letter to Lisbon. A celebration of human connection, identity, and cultural resilience in an increasingly globalized world.

Santo António - Lisbon Love

2026

Living Bad poster
5.6

A hotel by the northern shore of Portugal welcomes its guests over the weekend. A man is torn between being present for his wife and the space that his mother takes up between the two of them. A mother encourages her daughter’s marriage to enable her own love affair with her son-in-law. Another mother lives through her daughter, preventing her from making her own decisions. Three families at the end of their cycles of acceptance.

Living Bad

2023

Bad Living poster
4.8

In a family-run hotel near the northern coast of Portugal, several women from the same family, spanning different generations, live together. Their relationship, poisoned by bitterness, struggles to survive in the decaying hotel. The unexpected arrival of a granddaughter in this claustrophobic space provokes turmoil and rekindles latent hatreds and accumulated resentments.

Bad Living

2023

After Dance – A Concert Film poster
6.0

A large, time-worn house sits on a towering, untouchable pedestal. Ressaca Bailada – Filme Concerto follows individuals as they navigate their relationship with freedom, unity, and isolation within this setting. Celebrating tradition while confronting and questioning it, all against a backdrop of music that shapes the journey.

After Dance – A Concert Film

2024

Um Filme em Forma de Assim poster
4.2

Organized like a dream, structured like a musical and with texts, both spoken and sung, that lead us to unexpected, chaotic and exciting situations, which try to grasp part of what the unattainable Alexandre O'Neill left us.

Um Filme em Forma de Assim

2022

Profjam #000000 poster
NR

ProfJam wanted to show the contrast for his debut album and do it using the big screen

Profjam #000000

2020

Prémios Globos de Ouros 30 Anos poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Prémios Globos de Ouros 30 Anos

2026

Auto da Casa poster
NR

A theatre having national as part of its name, at the top of a square, reflecting a country’s history. But which one? This is a voyage through the various narratives about D. Maria II National Theatre, forged through the intentions of the several regimes that intended to convey their own ideologies within the theatre’s mission. This is also the story of those who fought against it, opposed the institution and became part of it. How can one become heir of these stories, even if never having set foot inside.

Auto da Casa

2026

As Meninas Exemplares poster
NR

The misfortunes of Sofia, the exemplary Madalena and Camila, the troubled vacations of girls and boys, a few years later leading to the resolution of some mysteries, form the perfect trilogy by the Countess of Ségur on education, social, religious, and political power. Desire and its oppression, violence and punishment, in short, the terrible loss combined with inevitable growth. Both adults and children will understand that precepts, rules, and prayers can tear nerves and blood apart.

As Meninas Exemplares

2025

The Tyrant Father poster
6.0

This remake of the 1940 film with the same name tells the story of a theatre company, its men and women in love, mistakes and misunderstandings. Chico loves Tatão, who is courted by Artur. Graça loves Chico, but doesn't know he loves Tatão. Santana writes a play for the Grandelinhas that will serve as a guide to Chico passion and convince Tatão that he is a rich count. The play is then staged and they all end up in prison.

The Tyrant Father

2022

2010s · 15 titles

Amour poster
7.7

Georges and Anne are in their eighties. They are cultivated, retired music teachers. Their daughter, who is also a musician, lives abroad with her family. One day, Anne has a stroke, and the couple's bond of love is severely tested.

Amour

2012

The Gilded Cage poster
6.7

In the beautiful area of ​​Paris, Maria and José Ribeiro lived for almost thirty years on the ground floor of a Haussmann building, in their dear little lodge.

The Gilded Cage

2013

Blood of My Blood poster
7.1

A regular family living in the outskirts of Lisbon sees the serenity of their lives shaken beyond any remedy within a week.

Blood of My Blood

2011

Coração no Escuro - Um Roubo de um Roubo em 11 Quadros poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Coração no Escuro - Um Roubo de um Roubo em 11 Quadros

2011

Carga poster
6.1

A lorry, a road and an unpredictable destiny, all intersecting in a human trafficking network. Caught up in this web, Viktoriya has only one chance: fight to survive.

Carga

2018

Fátima poster
5.9

The journey of 11 women while they go on a pilgrimage from Bragança to Fatima.

Fátima

2017

Vá Cavar Batatas poster
NR

After years living in Lisbon, Castro's family makes the decision to move to the countryside.

Vá Cavar Batatas

2012

Disquiet poster
5.5

Lisbon, today. In a room of a house at Douradores Street, a man invents dreams and theorizes about them. The essence of the dreams itself becomes physical, palpable, visible. The text itself materializes in its musicality. And, in front of our eyes, this music can be felt with the ears, brain and heart. It spreads itself in the street where the man lives, in the city that he loves above all and over the entire world.

Disquiet

2010

The Actor's Work poster
4.0

Throughout a year's work, a group of ten actors and a film director will work together on the creation of the characters and on the structure of the plot of a new film to come. Long sessions of discussion, rehearsals and endless repetitions serve to develop the most important scenes of that plot until it takes its ultimate form, in the film which results from this work.

The Actor's Work

2011

The Maias: Story of a Portuguese Family poster
5.8

The tragedy and comedy in Carlos' life begins, grows and ends like the tragedy and comedy of Portugal. In the company of his close friend, João da Ega, allegedly a brilliant writer, Carlos, with his idle existence as an aristocratic doctor, spends his time to enjoying friends and lovers. Until he falls in love. She is a new character in this revolutionary novel. It's a vertiginous passion that goes beyond that past gloominess to reach a new and darker abyss, incest.

The Maias: Story of a Portuguese Family

2014

Colo poster
6.8

Struggling against the crisis in Portugal, a mother doubles up jobs to pay the bills since her husband is unemployed. Their teenage daughter tries to keep living everyday life even if the money is running short, which makes everything uneasy. Escaping from their common reality, they slowly become strangers to one another, as the tension grows in silence and in guilt.

Colo

2017

Acts of Cinema poster
NR

Cinema and affections from life in images and what goes on outside the frame. 'Snapshots' of shootings and the present-day memory of directors, actors and technicians.

Acts of Cinema

2018

Assim Assim poster
7.0

Five characters intersect at a sidewalk beginning a journey through their lives.

Assim Assim

2012

Bewitched poster
NR

She arrives home at the end of the day, tired. While she prepares dinner, he reads the newspaper. Finally, she decides to bake some special cookies.

Bewitched

2012

Game of Checkers poster
NR

Following Marta's wake, her five best friends decide to spend the night at a rural tourist getaway that Marta never got around to opening. The night becomes a long, mazelike journey through their interconnecting friendships, ultimately leading to deep self-revelations about life, themselves and a friendship that survived it all. But will this friendship be able to survive death?

Game of Checkers

2016

2000s · 14 titles

The Fatalist poster
3.8

The complex relationship between master and servant is explored in director João Botelho's adaptation of Denis Diderot's popular novel Jacques le Fataliste et Son Maître. As Tiago (Rogério Samora) drives his master (André Gomes) through the Portuguese countryside to an unspecified destination, the traveling pair embark on a series of highly philosophical discussions. Flowing with tales of his life in the military and previous sexual escapades, Tiago trades a series of tales with his rapt passenger, including the story of a vengeful spurned lover who plots revenge on the nobleman who rejected her by transforming a prostitute into a society lady and convincing him to marry the tainted bride.

The Fatalist

2005

No artwork available
NR

A moment in the life of a grievieng mother with the identity crisis of her teenage daughter. The mother insists on wanting to understand what she only should accept, the daughter can not explain what should be accepted.

Mãe Há Só Uma

2006

A Mulher que Acreditava Ser Presidente dos EUA poster
5.5

Alexandra Lencastre plays a woman who believes she is President of the U.S.A.

A Mulher que Acreditava Ser Presidente dos EUA

2003

Get a Life poster
7.3

During one winter night, a Portuguese teenager, Alvaro, loses his life in a fight between a youth gang and the cops in a suburb of Paris. Cidalia, a 36 year old cleaning woman, his mother, decides to defy the code of silence of the Portuguese community and tries to find the truth. She losses her friends, her job and her family but gains a life.

Get a Life

2001

In the Darkness of the Night poster
6.0

A disturbing film about the Portuguese underworld of prostitution.

In the Darkness of the Night

2004

True and Tender is the North poster
5.0

Adaptation of a 1987 novel by Agustina Bessa Luis, a multi-generation exploration of a wealthy family with a mysterious past and a house on the island of Madeira.

True and Tender is the North

2008

Um Passeio no Parque poster
10.0

Things are going well to a married couple, they have two sons, and things are going well in their respective jobs, Until the husband betrays her wife with another woman, and their son becomes seriously hill.

Um Passeio no Parque

2000

O Capacete Dourado poster
5.6

The darkness of night, a barely lit place, motorbikes flirting with danger: a group of teenagers at a crossroads playing chicken with unaware passing cars. Jota (Eduardo Frazão) stands out from this group, unclassifiable; his destiny has no straight lines save those on the asphalt. Jota lives in permanent conflict with everything and everybody in his small town. No room for stillness. And then comes Margarida (Ana Moreira). Jota has no inside, Margarida has no outside. In spite of, or because of, that, they meet. What can they do? They can just ride, they can get away with it even if its all messed up. Love is to be lived.

O Capacete Dourado

2007

Tarde Demais poster
6.2

A touching and tragic real life story about a group of Portuguese fishermen who get caught in the middle of a storm in the Tejo river (Lisbon) and struggle to survive.

Tarde Demais

2000

Dead Man's Memories poster
4.9

A policeman lunching with his daughter is present when a dead body washes up on shore. He investigates, leading him down a twisted and muddled path of nefarious connections reflecting, somewhat, his own life.

Dead Man's Memories

2003

Corruption poster
3.7

A crime drama based on the life of a woman who lived for years with a man that was the head of a corruption network in the Portuguese football world.

Corruption

2007

Flesh of My Flesh poster
NR

A woman alone with her secret until one day she can not hold it any longer.

Flesh of My Flesh

2006

No artwork available
9.0

Zé Alberto and Laura are lovers, and have a clandestine and permanently threatened relationship. Zé Alberto is married to Fernanda, Laura's sister, whose husband is in prison for murder. Fernanda is aware of Laura's relationship with her husband and constantly threatens them to tell Armando everything. Laura and Armando have a daughter - Sónia - whose greatest defect is greediness and the highest quality to cover up her mother's romance with her uncle. The fear of the two lovers increases and events precipitate when they receive the news that Armando is about to go on parole ...

451 Forte

2000

A Falha poster
7.2

Twenty-five years after leaving school, a group of former students decide to organise a reunion. But, contrary to expectations, these "old boys" realise that time has accentuated their differences. The atmosphere is tense, the conversation taut and the old grudges resurface in no time.

A Falha

2002

1990s · 11 titles

Inquietude poster
6.8

An anthology film drama featuring a poetic mirror structure based on existential identity. In "The Immortals," adapted from a Helder Prista Monteiro play, two famous doctors, an 80-year-old father, and his 60-year-old son, contemplate senility and death. "Suzy," from an Antonio Patricio story, is set in the '30s when a young courtesan dies on the operating table. "Mother of the River" is from an Agustina Bessa-Luis fable about eternal life.

Inquietude

1998

Mário Eloy - A Runaway Painter poster
7.3

Documentary about the life and work of Mário Eloy, one of the greatest painters of the second generation of modernism in Portugal.

Mário Eloy - A Runaway Painter

1998

The Last Dive poster
7.0

Eloi, a paunchy middle-aged man, finds Samuel, a young sad sack, about to kill himself by plunging into the sea. Eloi takes Samuel under his wing, giving him a hot meal and bringing him to a seedy night club to introduce him to Esperança, who is said to be the most beautiful sex worker in Lisbon—and is also Eloi’s daughter.

The Last Dive

1992

The Mutants poster
7.7

Three homeless teenage rejects struggle to survive together. Of them, Andreia is pregnant, while Pedro and Ricardo hustle, steal and are exploited by a pornographer.

The Mutants

1998

Traffic poster
5.7

Young Jesus is taken on a vacation by his parents (Rita Blanco, Adriano Luz) to a deserted beach resort. They accidentally fall into overnight wealth after Jesus digs in the sand, uncovering a large drug stash. Others characters intersecting here include an alcoholic actress, a philandering banker, a general trafficking in arms, priests who close their church and head north as hitchhikers, politicians who watch an all-girl production of Julius Caesar, and beggars who recite a children's story in a huge heap of trash.

Traffic

1998

Lovely Child poster
7.1

Maria is a sweet child. She hasn’t father and doesn’t like her mother. She has a boyfriend, A bandit who would like to change his class.

Lovely Child

1990

Crime at the Little Star Pension poster
9.0

Neves and his wife Celia are the owners and managers of the 'Little Star Pension', a familiar hotel that caters to bourgeois family and would-be actors, instead of the ill-reputed 'Good-Night Pension' (just across the narrow street), where gigolos, whores, and criminals of all sorts may go for a quick encounter. However, not all is well among the ten residents of 'Little Star Pension': each dialogue line from every hotel guest is evidence that he, or her, has a reason (actually, more than one) to hate Neves - to the point of wishing him dead. Carelessness (or devious intention) by one party will provide the means; another, will create the propitious moment; yet another, and then the rest of them will create the festive New Year's Eve occasion - to do with Neves forever! Obviously, only the famous world private-eye Hércules Pirôt can solve the crime... for which he is called by phone, even before the deed is done.

Crime at the Little Star Pension

1990

Hermanias Especial Fim de Ano poster
NR

New years special aired on RTP on 1991

Hermanias Especial Fim de Ano

1991

Longe da Vista poster
5.6

In order to make some much-needed cash for himself, 65-year-old Portuguese prison inmate Eugenio impersonates a young woman and begins a romantic correspondence with a lonely Portuguese truck-driver living in Boston, convincing him that her tragic life has culminated in financial dire straits so he will send money. At first Eugenio's sister Idalina assists him in creating the character of Maria da Luz. Touched by her sweetness and apparent loving nature, the trucker willingly sends her money. When Idalina starts fearing they will be caught, she backs out of her arrangement with Eugenio who then convinces his young cellmate Vasco to help write the letters and even sends a picture of himself at age seven to "prove" that Maria has a young son. As prison life exacts an increasingly heavy toll upon Eugenio's health, his feminine alter-ego helps sustain him.

Longe da Vista

1999

Three Palm Trees poster
6.2

Lisbon, on a winter day in 1994, between six and fourteen o'clock. A forty-year-old woman despairs in the last eight hours preceding the birth of her first child.

Three Palm Trees

1994

Minus 9 poster
10.0

This short film is based upon a book of tales "Exemplary Crimes" by Max Aub who, in his turn, was inspired by real testimonies that describe crimes straightforwardly. The Testimonies are individual confessions by different persons that have nothing in common but the fact that all committed murder.

Minus 9

1997

1980s · 6 titles

Circle of Passions poster
4.0

An aristocratic Sicilian family living in the 1950s. Count Villafratti has sex one night with his nymphomaniac daughter because he thinks she is his wife.

Circle of Passions

1983

In Search of the Equator poster
9.0

A film about two young women, trying to decide how to go on with their lives and loves: Marie just dumped her boyfriend, who's married and can see her just secretly twice a week. At this point Pipa invites her to join her on a visit at her home at the coast of Portugal. Only when they are arrived there, Marie learns that Pipa has come to marry Manuel, and that she too is unsure if she'll be happy with her decision.

In Search of the Equator

1989

Hard Times poster
7.3

A film adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel "Hard Times" set in a Portuguese industrial town of the 1980s.

Hard Times

1988

No One Twice poster
6.5

Director Jorge Silva Melo has developed a viable, though highly intellectual mystery story about the world of art and culture and murder in this somewhat theatrical presentation. When German artist Bernd Hoffmann (Michael König) arrives in Lisbon to oversee the installation of his paintings in a joint exhibition with another Berlin artist, Hanna Brauer (Charlotte Schwab), Hanna never shows up. Hoffmann is puzzled because he is certain he saw a video sequence with Hanna at the exhibition, and he begins to look for her. Another Lisbon cultural center, a theater, is also having problems that may or may not be related -- and the mystery deepens when Hanna is found dead, either by her own hand, or murdered.

No One Twice

1985

Three Less Me poster
7.5

A young woman, working as sales-girl at a shopping center's music shop, wants someone with whom to share her secrets. A distant mother separating from her father, an aunt who emigrated to France, and her pre-adolescent sister, can't do - neither the boyfriend. Such a confident arrives unexpectedly - but then there are three of them, one too much. One leaves, but then another young man arrives, and there are three again. One must go. A sad young adult love story, told in the first person, singular - and ultimately alone, under the rain.

Three Less Me

1988

Agosto poster
7.8

Summer of 1964. The professor Carlos and the couple Dário and Alda spend time together in the beach during vacations. Away from the colonial war, everything seems lost in time.

Agosto

1988

Series credits

Alta Definição poster
7.2

In Alta Definição, Daniel Oliveira interviews one guest every week with an intimate approach.

Alta Definição

2009

Heart of Gold poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Heart of Gold

2015

Os Malucos do Riso poster
9.0

No synopsis available yet.

Os Malucos do Riso

1995

Heart & Soul poster
1.0

No synopsis available yet.

Heart & Soul

2018

Timeless Love poster
6.7

Catarina embarks on a dangerous journey to find who made her mother vanish. The Torres family seems to be the obvious suspect, but within them there's Vasco, the love of Catarina's life. Two opposed sides connected by love.

Timeless Love

2023

Winter Sun poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Winter Sun

2013

Lady of Tides poster
6.7

On her birthday, Joana's joy turns to despair when her abusive husband discovers her pregnancy and attempts to harm her. Fleeing the city, she finds refuge on a boat with criminals, but realizing the danger, she sees land beyond so leaps into the water and swims to Terceira Island, leaving her life behind. Exhausted on the shore, she encounters Chico, a lost child, during a religious ceremony. Joana arrives with the child, inadvertently becoming mistaken for a saint 'Our Lady of the Sea', revered by the island's faithful.

Lady of Tides

2024

Living Passion poster
4.4

With Algarve and South Africa as main stages, Paixão tells the story of a love that was destroyed by a lie. This is the story of a man determined to fight for justice and to recover ten years of his life and an unshakable love that resists time and all threats.

Living Passion

2017

Tempo de Viver poster
NR

Fátima and Laurinda are mother and daughter and the only thing they have in common is their blood ties. While Fátima suffers a series of misfortunes because of her daughter, Laurinda seeks to ascend socially at any cost through a millionaire marriage with the Martins de Mello heir. Meanwhile, Raquel, the widow of Fatima's brother, returns to Portugal to confront the Martins de Mello family, whom she judges guilty of her husband's death in the 9/11. Parallel to intrigues, rivalries, secrets, blackmail and betrayals, the arrival of a great mystery haunts everyone's lives forever: The enigmatic Tubarão.

Tempo de Viver

2006

Tell Me How It Happened poster
8.7

Television drama series which has been broadcast on RTP1 of Rádio e Televisão de Portugal from 2007 to 2011 and since 2019. It recounts the experiences of a middle-class family, the Lopes (Portuguese: Os Lopes), during the last years of the Estado Novo. In February 2019, RTP announced that the series, after eight years shelved, would be renewed, with the storyline moving firmly into the 1980s. The first episode of the sixth season was broadcast on 7 December 2019 with the Lopes entering 1984.

Tell Me How It Happened

2007

Programa Cautelar poster
NR

A combination of humor and analysis, which tries to explain reality in a simple, fun and factual way.

Programa Cautelar

2021

Hotel do Rio poster
6.5

No synopsis available yet.

Hotel do Rio

2024

For You poster
5.0

In the parish of Rio Meandro, two villages are at war over the construction of a dam that will submerge one of them: either Aldeia Velha or Aldeia Nova.

For You

2022

The Mata's Family poster
NR

A family by force... Paulo and Susana have been together for a few years now and decide to take the next step in their relationship by moving in together. But, as they're signing the deed to the house, her father, who was supposed to bring the check, ends up delivering the bad news that there is no money for the house, thus ending this young couple’s dream. However, Artur doesn’t want to come off as a bad parent, so he offers his attic to them so that they can start their life together. So, Paulo’s dream turns into an absolute nightmare, as their life as a couple is, in fact, shared with seven other people who are all very different from them and will start controlling their every move in a permanently tense environment. The Mata family, as it turns out, is all insane, the only exception being Susana. And even her will have a hard time convincing the rest of the family to accept and welcome their new member.

The Mata's Family

2011

Médico de Família poster
7.5

No synopsis available yet.

Médico de Família

1998

A Minha Sogra é Uma Bruxa poster
8.7

No synopsis available yet.

A Minha Sogra é Uma Bruxa

2002

Maternidade poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Maternidade

2011

Destino Maior poster
10.0

The story of Lúcia Cruz, a humble woman who believes she lost her daughter at birth, unaware that the baby was sold by her own stepmother to a wealthy family.

Destino Maior

2026

Odisseia poster
8.6

A story developed in two different narratives which are interlinked. On the first one, the two friends Bruno Nogueira and Gonçalo Waddington (playing themselves) set out on a caravan trip through Portugal with the desire to escape from their daily lives and find a solution for their personal struggles. On the second one, there's the fictionalized making-off of the miniseries itself.

Odisseia

2013

Sara poster
8.2

Sara is a portuguese actress who only works in film and is known for her ability to cry on cue. But one day her eyes dry up just like her interest in cinema. The solution? Soap operas.

Sara

2018

Sai da Minha Vida poster
10.0

No synopsis available yet.

Sai da Minha Vida

1996

Parabéns poster
10.0

No synopsis available yet.

Parabéns

1992

Cupido Electrónico poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

Cupido Electrónico

1993

Caminhos da Alma - Fátima poster
NR

The pilgramage of 11 women in 9 days and 400km to Fátima.

Caminhos da Alma - Fátima

2017

Alentejo Sem Lei poster
7.0

Set in Alentejo in the mid-19th century, in the period following the Liberal Wars. In a sparsely populated and almost wild land, without shadow and without law, violence dictates the existence of Bando do Zarolho.

Alentejo Sem Lei

1991

Santos da Casa poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

Santos da Casa

2003

Marco Paulo poster
8.3

No synopsis available yet.

Marco Paulo

2023

The Tyrant Father poster
6.0

No synopsis available yet.

The Tyrant Father

2022

Casino Royal poster
9.0

No synopsis available yet.

Casino Royal

1990

Caça ao Tesouro poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Caça ao Tesouro

1994

Behind the camera